June 14, 2010

Ohiisashiburidana!

Okay, I probably screwed up a couple long vowels in that title, but my give-a-shitter is on the fritz.

So... quite a lot has changed in the 9 or so months since my last posting.

Last fall I went dark about the time a friend, coworker, and mentor (henceforth referred to as Kahuna) was diagnosed with malignant liver cancer. The first round of chemo didn't have as much effect as the doctors hoped, but it did show promise if performed long-term. However, Kahuna had been through this once before. You see, in his early 20s, he developed malignant bone marrow cancer, went through a nasty battery of chemo, and made it through a 5% scenario with the loss of a leg. Thirty years later when cancer decided it hadn't done enough to him already, he wasn't going to put himself through more than one chemo regimen. Once off the treatment plan, the doctors gave him 5-6 months.

There was a trip to Dallas in November. December saw work really ratchet up and not let up until, well... I'll let you know when it lightens up. I have the good fortune to be at a construction company in Arizona that is pretty well positioned to weather the worst and keep us busy. December also saw a week-long visit by someone very special.

Early February saw me and my ever more significant other take a trip to Florida to watch the night launch of the Shuttle. That first scrub was a killer. *zzzzzZZZzzzzz*

March was fairly blah until a late trip to Houston gave me a chance to meet more of the potential in-laws.

April was off to a pretty good start when the news came that Kahuna had finally succumb to his cancer the Monday morning after Easter. Services were held the following Friday, and my now-truly-significant-other flew in to be with me. She had met Kahuna only briefly in December, but he's been such a big part of my life for the past eight years that she still came out for the service.

If there's one thing I learned from this episode, it's the care and dedication outfits like Hospice of the Valley bring to what is (or would be for me anyway) a truly depressing job.

Throughout all of this there have been a couple other things going on.

In mid-February I started having serious digestive problems. The most recent diagnosis is that I may have caeliac disease, which doesn't make much sense to me, given how gluten-heavy my diet has been for 30 years.

The other ongoing thing'ama'bob is the impending completion of the 64 Falcon. As of this last weekend, glass is in, headliner is in, carpet is in, door panels are ready for install, rear deck is in, seats are ready. The only thing preventing us from putting the seats in this last weekend were the kickpanels. Bastards just would not go in and it looks like the manufacturer either cut them a little short in the door jamb, or our bodywork has been previously "modified" by the chuckle-heads who started vandalizing this poor car before we got it away from them. Either way, once the kick panels are in, we can drop in the front seat, install the seatbelts, and she'll be completely road legal (well... except for the fact that the reverse lights aren't linked to the shifter yet).

I expect to take a short cruise this next weekend (Short, because the suspension has yet to be aligned)

You've been saying you'll be done with that car for 3 weeks now. I no longer believe.

Posted by: Esteban at June 16, 2010 06:52 PM (3GiN/)

4
Dad keeps quitting early. I want to keep working in the evenings, but by then he's spent. I can't exactly fault him. He's 67. This weekend, we put in the kick panels, lay in a bit of carpet (we didn't know we'd need to supply this particular piece ourselves), bolt in the seats and seat belts, and I think we'll be ready to roll. We'll need to check the various fluids and whatnot, but that's a 10 minute job.